Monday, February 19, 2018

Monday. Long weekend in Ontario, today is a day off the work. Today is the Family Day Holiday where you celebrate the importance of family life. On the Family Day, you plan and take part in activities aimed at the whole family.

Family Day is a “manufactured holiday”, which means some burnt-out civil, middle aged servant wanting promotion decided to screw with the natural order and create a day for families to “bond” temselves. Sounds great – in theory.

I have no family, at least not here in Toronto. I am divorced, my daughter is living with my ex. She came once in a week to visit me and that's all. So I don't really care about this artificial holiday.

Last night I made "beans party" at my place. I prepared beans with smoked meat, I cooked 5 hours in a slow cooker and the meal was delicious. My friends (all of them divorced) came around 7 and we stayed until 12 eating, drinking beer, talking and listening music. It was fun night.

This Family Day holiday is introduced artificially, couple years ago

My first reaction was “wonderful to celebrate families and, hey, an extra day off.” We work hard, long hours in this for-profit world so it is great to have a holiday. But today I wonder what are we actually celebrating? For me, the Family Day is an irony.

This society keep repeating that the family is one of our most precious gifts in life. Family members are here to lend a helping hand, make you laugh, be supportive and cheer you up. They help you overcome challenges and offer guidance. Unfortunately, under the same society, your gift, your family, is deteriorating rapidly by the madness of modern life.

Families seem to have fallen into a WIFI sinkhole. There is no more quality conversation between kids and parents anymore, much less to other relatives. As social media is for parents so children, constant texting and online games creates a really wonderful picture of apparent happy family.

Today's society has become a greedy and selfish. Instead of thinking of others, people only think about themselves. Many individuals put off marriage until they have a successful job, a home and a comfortable lifestyle. Many won't even consider having children until they have reached their desired goal.

The staggering number of divorces granted by the Court last year is a serious cause for concern, that speaks to the current socioeconomic situation and trends. Healthy marriages are good and they are the building block of healthy family. They are also good for children; growing up in a happy family protects children from mental, physical, educational and social problems. However, about 50 percent of married couples in Canada divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher.

In this world, there is little time for rest and relaxation, so the time has to be introduced artificially, like this Family Day holiday, somehow pushing you to spend time with your loved ones. Thus, your artificial family day is so often identified with anxiety and disappointment.

Society gives you a false perception of reality, and you fail to realize that you have lost the ability to solve simple problem of your own boredom. Peer pressure, social media and selfish feelings are just a few of the false perceptions you are facing. Every day you are constantly and simultaneously moving in multiple directions so rapidly that you rarely have the opportunity to see your real situation.

Life will not leave you much not even laughter

Blame it on the aimlessness of life. You live this life in a cubicle, nothing to live for, nothing to die for. Are you living your life for the kids? I'm tired of all this crap I have to listen about children. That's all I hear about, everywhere... Raising children is getting entirely too much attention.

Regardless if you're married or divorced, single dads or working moms, who think you're such fucking hero for raising your kids, aren't going to like this, but somebody's have to tell you for your own good: your children are overrated and overvalued, and you've turned your life in a wrong way. Eventually you'll be disappointed...

You live for and instead of your kids, and it's not healthy. Well, you love your kids. So what?! Everybody loves their children; the love doesn't make you special. What I'm talking about is this constant, mindless concerns, this neurotic fixation that suggests that somehow your life has to revolve around the lives of your kids. It's completely insane.

Today's kids are way too soft. For one thing, there's too much emphasis on safety and safety equipment: childproof medicine bottles, fireproof pajamas, child restraints, car seats. And helmets! Bicycle, baseball, skateboard, scooter helmets. Kids have to wear helmets now for everything but jerking off. Grown-ups have taken all the fun out of being a kid.

Dragging kids all over town in search of empty, meaningless activities to kill time: scouts, swimming, soccer, karate, piano, tennis, bale, salsa, and who knows what else. It's absurd. You want to help your kids? Leave them alone!

You are getting older and your kids are escape for facing that fact. The kids can't stop struggle against aging. You fight against nature for years and months without hope to win. Desperate attempts to use creams, start running, going to gym, buying a new car and finding a new, younger woman or man will only prolong the inevitable. As it should.You had your youth, you had a good days, if you played it bad... so be it!

People have anguish over their 30th birthday and try to hide their 40th, it is with the 50th that most start to actually see themselves as beginning to be old. Why? I'm 53 next month and it comes with that age, marriage, divorce, children and careful observation of our society that I can write these words. Other people writing about you too... read it.

"And for what?" Lisa continues. "This wasn't for a few months or even years. this was our whole life! We were trapped! Fifteen years of it! Isn't that nuts? And for what? To raise kids? That's just an excuse. Anyone can raise kids: you don't have to live in constant soul-crushing servitude to do it. One day I asked DJ what he really wanted out of life and he said he wanted to be a dentist just like daddy. It was like being kicked in the stomach."

She shakes her head sadly. "And you know, it's not just that it's a terrible way to live: it's not really life at all. It's not something you choose, it's what you get when you don't choose. We just marched ourselves into these damned idiotic, impossible lives without ever stopping to think about what we were doing. High school, college, post-grad and then straight into the workforce. Get married, have a kid, borrow money, buy a house, fill it with junk, have another kid, borrow more money, bigger house, more junk. It's completely insane, but that's how everyone I know lived. Affluenza, they call it. like a disease. That's what it is. For the last seven years we've been struggling just to make the minimum payments on our debt."

She laughs bitterly. "Everyone I knew was the same way. Some at a higher income level, some lower, but I think practically everyone we knew was dangerously over-extended in every direction. Money, time, work, responsibilities. We were doing everything right and we didn't really have any misfortune: no tragedies or health issues. We've been members of the local country club for ten years. Yes, we were living the American dream. Exhausted, broke, not good parents, not happy, and now split up."

-Spiritual Warfare, Jed McKenna

Nobody puts you in bondage except your own imagination. As you think about the world, so will you see it, as is your conviction so will be your experience.